Trying to make it through life with His help.

Posts tagged ‘Heavenly Father’

So, the date has been set, and barring any changes from the moving company, I will be back HOME in three weeks! I never thought about being in Atlanta this long. For the last 6 years, at least, I’ve thought I would be moving home ‘soon’. But it just never seemed to happen. But finally, after 14 years, 7 months and 24 days, (…but who’s counting?!), God has allowed me to move. I’ve ‘graduated’ as my best friend says. Apparently I have done all He needed me to do and learn here and my next ‘growth spurt’ will occur in a new place.

I can’t tell you how excited I am about what God has in store for me. I have no idea what it is, or what it entails, but I am so ready for it! A new job with new opportunities to learn and grow, new people to meet…Wow! Awesome!!

What I’m not looking forward to, however, is trying to find a new church home. It will be impossible to even come close to finding what I have here in a church. But I need to look at finding that new church home as an adventure. One that I should look forward to. Stepping outside my comfort zone, making myself go somewhere new isn’t something I do easily. But it will mean finding new leaders and teachers who will help me continue my walk with God. But I know without finding a new church, my life as I have come to know it, will become stagnant. And that is something I can not let happen.

Life without hearing from my Heavenly Father would be unbearable. When you’re used to hearing from Him on a somewhat regular basis, it can be unnerving when you don’t hear from Him. When I lost my job, I figured I would move home, but it wasn’t a guaranteed thing. I waited and listened for His voice to tell me what He wanted me to do. But it never came. I didn’t want to make this decision on my own. I wanted to do what He wanted me to do, but I wanted Him to TELL me what to do. So, I sat and listened. But I didn’t hear that Voice as I had before. I never actually heard Him say, “Move home” like I thought I would. Like I wanted to. That would have been too easy, I suppose. So, I had to rely on His gentle, guiding ways of letting me know what to do. You might call them signs… I don’t know how else to describe it. The signs varied, everything from hearing Bluegrass music and feeling a yearning for home that I hadn’t had in years, to someone telling me I reminded them of the woman stuck on her roof in a flood who refused all help because she was ‘waiting on the Lord to help her’, (which, I wasn’t THAT stubborn about it!), to the anxiety I felt about even applying for a job in Georgia, to finally, the peace that moving home was the right decision to make. It took an agonizing three weeks for the peace to come. But come, it did. And now I can say with all certainty that moving home to be closer to my family is the best and only decision that I could have made.

I will miss a lot of things about Georgia, but nothing here can compare to being in God’s Will for your life and knowing that it coincides with what you want. I am ready to walk in my destiny, where ever that may lead.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” ~ Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to walk in your destiny? God has a destiny just for you. One that is for no one else in this world. It is uniquely yours, and you, and only you, can fulfill the destiny He has for you. All you have to do is ask Him what He wants you to do. He’ll tell you. A lot of people don’t ask because they’re scared to know. They’re afraid they’ll be sent to Africa or some other far away land. And, yes, that is a possibility. But you have to crawl before you can walk, and walk before you can run. So, you have to start living a Christian life and be open to all it means before He will call you to something big. He won’t call you to do something He hasn’t prepared you to do. Change, especially as a Christian, is a constant thing. He will mold you into what He wants you to be. Sometimes it’s subtle. Sometimes it’s painful. But you will never be the same. But it will be an exciting journey from the first day, until your last.

“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.” ~ John 15:2-6

Go ahead. Ask Him what He wants you to do. I dare ya. You’ll never be the same.